Singer, Michael Card has a song title The Poem of Life. Largely this
idea has been taken from his beautiful song.
Life is a song we must sing with our days
A poem with meaning more than words can say
A painting with colors no rainbow can tell
A lyric that rhymes either heaven or hell
We are living letters that doubt desecrates
We’re the notes of the song of the chorus of faith
God shapes every second of our little lives
And minds every minute as the universe waits by
CHORUS:
The pain and the longing
The joy and the moments of light
Are the rhythm and rhyme
The free verse of the poem of life
So look in the mirror and pray for the grace
To tear off the mask, see the art of your face
Open your ear lids to hear the sweet song
Of each moment that passes and pray to prolong
Your time in the ball of the dance of your days
Your canvas of colors of moments ablaze
With all that is holy
With the joy and the strife
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life
Age, experience, knowledge affirms this song to me. The more I live, the more I work, study and
understand the human body. The cycles and seasons of life, the more I appreciate not only living out my
own song, but bearing witness to the life songs I get to interact with. Like making a great tapestry or a
mosaic, often as the pieces are put together we cannot understand its place in the moment. With time,
with perspective, it all shapes us to one harmonious piece. There are seasons of life we love,
experiences we love, and love how they shape us. What about the darker colors, the greys, the browns,
the parts we do not like. How long? How much perspective does it take for us to appreciate the
difficult parts of life we have to go through? Some things in my life, I wonder if I will ever fully
appreciate. Sometimes it seems to always to be the grey blob in the middle of yellow.
What does it take to get through, to live through, to gain perspective. Age and experience, yes. Who
are you at the other end? Older? Wiser? I hope. What are the wounds? The scars life leaves behind? Can
we gain any understanding in the middle of the process? To live life with each note and rhythm.
Through my work, through my study, I have gotten the opportunity to literaly touch the lives of those
who have come to me. I have held the weight in the shoulders. The immobilized sacrum. The collection
of knots, each trigger spot a story. I also get the advantages of working with newborn babies up to
geriatrics. The stages so different, but yet all have their strain patterns, often these start in utero. The
thoughts and impressions we carry from our birth story, our family’s stories. We carry it all before we
draw our first breath. So before we are even born our song and lyric begin, it sets the stage for the grand
masterpiece of our lives, each one different. Who you are, your unique constitution is set in place at
conception. Much of life, where we grow up, our origin stories and ancestry, completely out of our
control.
What is your unique story? What is your beautiful song? How can I support the song of your life? What
brings more brillance to the parts you like and how can we soften the heavier pieces? How we assimilate
every aspect, every transition to bring harmony to life. When we recognize the seasons and cycles of life
and understand them, they are not always linear. Your early years could have been marked with
difficulities only to errupt to a deep wisdom and eventually joy. Or a beautiful life that tragedy that
strikes suddenly. To see your life as a series of characters each with her own story to tale. The story of
childhood, into early adult, adult, leading to the wiser, mature years, eventually leading to a state of
being as we were in our earliest years. To see each stage, is to see the unique challenges of each stage,
and the patterns and strains they create. Life is like a series of levers and pulleys, one action leading to
another. Just as the body holds pain, the mind also holds pain, they support each other. The thoughts,
impressions and fears are the things that manifest and take root in our life, sometimes in a disease, an
allergy, an accident. Our mind and body are constantly telling the story of our lives, even if we never
utter a word. The mind and body working togeter with the spirit are constantly singing our song,
carrying all the notes together. What does your song sound like? What is your tempo? rhythm? style?
Do you like your song? Can you bear it? Like I said, much of it is our origin story, the story of our
generations? The quicker we understand the parts that have been written for us, the sooner we
understand these pieces. To truly work with it, is to see what is not of ourselves. There is the origin
story. What about other aspects. Time, place, season, nature. The time of day, the time of life. The
season of nature, the season of life. The nature around us, the nature of us. How do we bring all these
aspects into one cohesive harmony? Are these the elements that bring juxtaposition to life. Often I
carry memories with duality. Going through a difficult marriage in a beautiful location. The joy of my
children with the struggle of supporting a family. Loving the changes of life, struggling with the physical
and emotional demand of the change. Is this what life work is? Not the who am I? What will I be? How
will my life turn out? But living out each experience in the time and place we are given, to the best of
our ability.
This is why I love my job. This is why l love the knowledge I have been given. To understand how to
nurture, support and deal with each daily, seasonal life challenge as presented. To live each day fully.
We support ourselves daily with daily practices, rituals, to bring a certain meditation to daily life. We
accept the seasons, how can we nurture and support ourselves through these times. To be shaped by
nature, knowing we are nature ourselves. Life gives us a toolkit, what tools do you wish to utilize and
support yourself along the way. This has been my mission from my teens, 20s and beyond from the
knowledge I have sought out to support my healing, and eventually support the healing of others.The
therapies I have chosen are the therapies that support me, I know my unique story. How I feel on most
days and what I need to be my best.
Craniosacral Therapeutic is an osteopathic approach to health; looking at the system from the sacrum to
the top of the head and everthing along the spinal column. Its hard science mixed with and intuitive
dialogue with the body. It looks at the strain patterns in the body, the places where the rhythm is not
flowing and reinvigorating the body. It is also, quiet and gentle. You want to relax and make profound
changes, you get quiet and wait and the body will follow. The therapist lays gentle hands and the body
tells its story. Where it hurts. Where it all began. Though it doesn’t always happen, often dialoging with
the pain often occurs. When we connect in with the origin, the source of the dysfunction we get the
opportunity to reshape our story. To go back to an earlier time, what can we uncover about the
trauma we carry. Often we do not understand the details because we carry false narratives with the pain.
When we can get to the origins with a wiser mind we can gain the clarity and retell our stories with
understanding. Working with bodies teaches me that physical wounds heal quickly, emotional and
spiritual wounds take so much longer to heal, sometimes a lifetime. I often bear witness to people in
their senior years still processing the wounds of childhood. What is craniosacral therapy good for?
Everything that transpires along the central nervous system, cranium to sacrum. It can be good for
anyone. Not all like this quiet, gentle approach to healing, it set us up into a state of being as opposed to
doing. Not everyone is comfortable here. It requires one to put trust into the healing process and trust
in your bodies natural intuition that it knows exactly what it needs.
To acheive contentment, is to live in alignment with your convictions. What do these look like? Does it
mean aligning with a diet? Ethical or faith based practice? Living life strictly, fluidly or somewhere in the
grey. We know how we feel when life gets out of balance and starts to spin out of control. Constantly
reacting to situations and never gaining a foothold on life. We end spiraling to the two extremes;
overwhelmed, overstimulated and frantic to dead in our tracks, stagnant to any real progress. Little by
little we wake up to the idea, that the path to success it not the crash diet or the unattainable levels of
perfection but the daily small choice we make setting ourselves up for long term success. I have tried
them all, the diet and lifestyle programs promising big success, but never seems sustainable for long
term goals. I have found the most tried and true methods to health and wellness are the ones that have
stood the test of time. Here is where my love of ayurveda started. My first exposure was learing the
Doshas. The three basic constitutions, Vata, Pitta and Kapha. We are each are a combination of the
three. Vata taking on the qualities of air and ether, Pitta being fire and water. Kapha being earth and
water. How do the elements of the environment manifest in you? How do you live in harmony with the
elements in nature, with the seasons of the world, with your environment, with the seasons of your
life? Ayurveda literally means, “the science to life.” Sages brought wisdom from daily living to longevity
down to a science of daily principles for you. No two people are the same, and your unique consitution
to your place, in the seasons is unique. We all can’t follow the same diet. The vatas live in a state of
change constantly moving like the wind, the bodies and minds often erratic, the struggle to soothe their
nerves, the need for warmth and grounding in their food, environment and exercise. Pittas like fire, can
be illuminating but also can also be destructive with hot tempers, to much heat in the belly can lead to
acidity and inflammation. They need to quiet their minds and their bodies, and embrace a cool, often
slow moving practice. The Kaphas are slow and grounded like earth itself, they can support everyone.
Their slowness can lead to sluggishness. A cold, slow constituition brings stagnation in lymph, think colds,
the flu, sinus congestion. They need warmth, they need movement. They carry lots of stamina with long
lasting energy reserves they need to tap into. They need warmth and spice in life. The ultimate goal of
ayurveda is balance, longevity and the prevention of disharmony in your daily life. In harmony, you can
live your life to its fullest.
I am feminine, I am a woman, and I approach life, specifically my life with a feminine lens. Which
comes first? the chicken or the egg? The hen, the hen is the one that gives and sustains life, it produces
the egg and nurtures the chick to maturity. Each woman, mother or not is a giver and sustainer of life.
They nurture and sustain the lives around them. To be woman is to be fragile, it is the delicate bloom
that rises from the dirt, that perserveres through the harshes environements, and maintains its natural
beauty often with stalwart of a rugged landscape, that has endured the elements and erosion of time
and life itself. To each woman knows to be woman is to constantly build up and tear down. Our bodies
are constantly expanding and contracting on a monthly cycle. This is why we are so hard to pin down,
even to ourselves. Why must we love and hate at the same time? The things we care the most about can
be discarded at a moments notice, probably because our bodies are constantly building and shedding
our own skins with little regard for the ways of the world. The world, has little regard for the seasons,
cycles, rhythms of life, our bodies will not let us forget, there is a wisdom that goes deeper than our
plans. The goal is to tap into this wisdom, observe it and let it teach you. The wisdom teaches us that
sometimes we must rest, sometimes we create, we must work, and we must introspect, and it doesn’t
happen with perscribed appointments. Few of us appreciate or honor the rhythms of our own lives, or
those around us. To honor the greater seasons of each woman’s life, the time of our youth, our time of
mothering, or the wisdom that comes from maturity. To a love a woman at each stage and each is
unique and different. We fear for the young maids, so naive. We rely too much on the mothers, carrying
everyone’s load. We discard the sages who have lost their beauty and agility. How can I as a
practicioner honor each woman in the stage she is in, get her to honor these stages in her own life,
support and teach her to support her own life as she is living it. The oldest ways and practices are
often the best, for centuries people have learned how to support and nurture themselves, and heal
others. There is Abdominal Therapy, a collection of ancient practices mostly coming from the Rainforest
of Belize by midwives and bush doctors, healing the women who came to them for support. With little
formal education about the human body, they knew what worked to support each woman with practical
wisdom. Rosita Arvigo, a naturopath sought out this knowledge, to keep it alive and to teach and heal
others for centuries to come, vowing the knowledge was not to be lost with the loss of these intuitive
healers. Abdominal Therapy seeks to support each woman, in each stage, with the systems common
to womanhood. It doesn’t seek to make anyone dependent on their practioner or looking outside
themselves for the answers but to teach and support each woman how to care for themselves by
teaching and encouraging them to massage their own belly, and listen to the wisdom of their body.
Do you hear your song? Are you listening to it? We often mute our own stations as a survival instinct but
always pay the price later. Are we allowing those around us to play their song, it is not a competition
for space. Most of life, art, music and poetry is at a slower rhythm than we care to play. We choose the
hurricane, the tornado, the torrents of rain, over the slow steady patterns. I am also guilty, in a mad
rush to the finish line, breaking my own leg. At the season of life I am in, days start getting shorter,
months fly by, I don’t know where the year went. My children start to look grown, I feel the need to
start to finish, to wrap up, not understanding it ends to begin again. I finish a chapter, not appreciating
there are so many more to write. I too must slow down and listen for the gentle rhythms of my life,
nurture self, nurture others with a slow and steady pace. Teaching others as I must teach myself. Will
you join me on the joyful song of life, to plant, nurture, grow, harvest and then plant again. Falling in
love with the melody of it all. I invite you to walk beside me. Kavya lifework is not a business or a
program to sell, but an invitation to open yourself to the listening to your own life, and appreciate the beauty of it all.